Friday, July 06, 2007

stop. fucking. thief.

I have spent the last 48 hours changing passwords, running scans, hauling my computers to the shop and ultimately purchasing something new that should be clean. Some @#$!@%$#@@# asshole compromised all of my accounts. Whether it was a keylogger or a mistaken click through on a spam email (I would say never but there's always a chance that either my office manager or I did this), some bastard has been in all of my accounts, impersonating me with customers and offering classic Mustangs(!) for sale. Yesterday afternoon, I changed an email notification in one account only to have it switched back within five minutes.

I've given all of the data to the police, but as far as I know, this useless piece of shit could be watching this print out across his/her screen even as I'm typing. Have any of you all ever had this happen? What a fucking ordeal.

15 Comments:

I've been reading you lately and never comment on the political stuff, not for any reason outside of the fact that I am kind of just done with it. Just so done. Anyway, I am always hoping you are doing well and was sad to open this up today. This is VERY stressful and it has happened to me. I had someone tap into my online bank account. Thankfully I had the last laugh because at the time there were so few funds. All this work on his part (I guess) to get nearly nothing. His note to self: Don't go robbing single working new yorkers accounts. Anyway, it did fuck me up though and second guess every move I make for a long time. More than anything else, it was just so totally inconvenient. Lynette, this is when I think it's great to have a life partner. It is times like this when you need someone to lean on. Yay Mike.

So Sorry for your pain. Hope they catch this bastard and string him/her up by his balls/tits. I don't know of anything new you can do to stop this shit, but again, I humbly suggest you switch to a mac. Haven't had these issues yet, but our situations aren't very similar. I am not using my home computer for anything business related.

No experience with this. Maybe that's one of the advantages of being a technotard, I don't know. I'm not even sure I understand what happened to you. Did he just get control of your computer? If he's not stealing your money, then it's more of an irritant than outright theft. I guess it's still a huge inconvenience. Sorry and hope it get's resolved quickly.

i think this is related to the unauthorized sale of my retirement account stock a month ago. the sale of the stock and the subsequent transfer to a bank account not my own was averted by the company's software.

it seems odd, though, that it happened on 5/22 and now this end of june.

the potential for loss here is in subverting my customers' payments elsewhere. it just. seriously. sucks.

I think it is time to call in an IT consultant and create a serious firewall. I have never had this problem, but my office is constantly having to upgrade it's security. Hopefully the police will be able to trace this asshat and give him/her a good what for. Sorry to hear you are having to put up with this.

OK, here is some sound advice from IT people (I had this conversation yesterday with a 22 year old techie): Back up all your files and your system with an external hard drive. Cost: around $120 for 80 gig. Then REFORMAT your computer. ERASE everything.

Then reinstall with your back up disks. This is the only way to get rid of these perverts.

Then change all of your passwords. Do not use vowels, only consonants. You'll know what the word is, but these bozos won't guess. Make sure to place random numbers in your password. Change your password every month or so. CHANGE IT!

Lynette, don't rely on gurus from Circuit City or Office Max. Go to some IT people at a university or some young GEEK who knows his stuff.

Your computer comes with back up discs. If you did not create them when you got your computer, and if it is a DELL, the DELL people will help you over the phone (yeah, they're in India.) For $35 they will reformat your computer and send you the disks you need. Just make sure you've backed up all your important files on an external hard drive. A 2 gig stick won't do, unless you have no music or videos to back up.

And don't ever download an unsolicited file on an email. Ever. I don't download anything that I don't ask for, not even from my mother. Don't click on free MP3's. Make sure when you are purchasing something online that your stuff is encrypted, and seek the protection of a router. Unless you let those bastards in through an invitation (you visit their site first), a router will keep phishers out.

Lynette honey, I am so sorry you're having to screw around with this.. all I can say is go and get yourself a Mac girlfriend. The Beast's box has had issues in the past- thankfully not to the degree you're experiencing. I've have nary a problem with my two Macs in seven years..

1. Use Spybot Search and Destroy. It is Shareware. You may make a donation by Paypal if you wish. Use it regularly. Immunize your machine. It works. I use it on all of my machines.

2. Use AVG AntiVirus. IBM uses it worldwide. Home users can download the free version. It is excellent. I use it on all my machines.

3. Use a firewall. Not the Windows Firewall. The Windows Firewall is good. You need a hardware irewall.

4. You have my email and phone numbers. Let me know when you want to talk on the phone. We can fix this problem. My Mondays are full of work conference calls. The afternoon is usually free after 3pm ET. I can walk you through this problem. It is one of the benefits of being a geek electrical enginner and software engineer double major.

That sucks big time! You should get some keylogger detection software to scan for anything that might still be running.

Sad to say but this may only be the beginning of your troubles. If you ever logged into your bank accounts make sure you change your passwords there from a clean machine. Even if you don't have much it's way easy to forge checks and create overdrafts. This woman is getting sued by Bank of America because of $23,000 in overdrafts due to identity theft; don't let it happen to you.

Also you will probably want to call the credit bureaus and put a fraud alert in your credit files making sure nobody opens accounts in your name. Or, if you're lazy use one of the full service companies to do it for you.